“Most suggestively,” he said.

  My brother was certainly good-looking enough to warrant an ass grab or two, but good Lord, why didn’t that ever happen to me?

  But I already knew the answer, didn’t I? It’s hard to get your ass grabbed—or anything grabbed, for that matter—when you’re pounding a keyboard all day and night.

  “So who was it?” I asked.

  “A girl from my drama class. I’ve been noticing her checking me out lately. She was buzzing pretty good last night and the next thing I knew her hand was inside my jeans.”

  He went on telling me stories of parties and fights and jokes, and all this, of course, happening just tonight. My kid brother did more in one night than I did in a year.

  “I got a new book,” I said, when he was finally done.

  “That’s, um, exciting.”

  “It’s really quite fascinating,” I went on.

  “Sure. Anyway, after we hit Bennigan’s—”

  “I can summon monsters and dark gods from the other side—”

  “—we went down to Newport for this party Carlos was throwing—”

  “—and demons, too, at least they’re kind of like demons—”

  “—and I puked in his kitchen sink, har har—”

  “—actually, there’s one behind you now. It’s really quite easy to do—”

  “—and then everyone got the shock of the year when we found Rick and Andy in bed—” And that’s when my brother finally stopped talking and looked at me. His eyes then shifted to the black book in my hands. “Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? What’s behind me?”

  Why I chose that moment to scare my brother, I may never know. Perhaps it’s just what older brothers do. And I took my older brother duties very seriously. Growing up, I thoroughly harassed my little brother, and I suppose now wasn’t any different than, say, the time I decided to throw him outside naked and lock the door behind him.

  But maybe there was something else going on here. Maybe a little extra darkness, courtesy of the creepy-crawly book in my hands. Maybe some of that darkness was already rubbing off on me, perhaps even working its way into our world through me.

  Or perhaps I just like scaring the hell out of my brother.

  Either way, I dove in head first. I held up the book and said, “I was just talking about this book, Necronomicon. According to it, if you do what it says, you can conjure these...things to help you.”

  “To help you?”

  “Among other things.”

  His eyes narrowed. He was buzzed and maybe even a little high on something. I wasn’t sure how fast he was processing information, but he ultimately decided that I was yanking his chain. “You’re such a geeky dumb ass,” he said, shaking his head. “Gimme that!”

  And before I knew it, he had leaned over and snatched the book out of my hands. As an avid collector and lover of all books, I make it a habit to preserve a book’s spine, even a paperback. My brother however, possessing no such sensibilities, folded the black book virtually inside out as he scanned through it. I cringed.

  He bloodshot eyes narrowed. “What is this shit?”

  I knew deep down that I had him, probably because I knew him so well. And tonight he was just buzzed enough, just high enough, just tired enough, and just gullible enough to really scare the shit out of him.

  “Read the back,” I calmly said.

  He did, and five minutes later (he’s not the fastest reader), he threw the book back at me. There was real fear in his eyes. Oh, yeah, I had him. The question was: how far did I want to take this?

  He shrank back. “What the fuck are you doing with that shit?”

  “Using it.”

  “Yeah, right.” My brother cracked his knuckles and tried to laugh. His self-satisfied, after-party glow was gone. I had seriously harshed his mellow.

  But I wasn’t done with him yet. Not by a long shot. After all, I had a long tradition of older brother teasing and torturing to uphold. Not to mention I had spent the night alone with words and my imagination, while my younger brother had been out partying and ass grabbing. I was, admittedly, a little jealous. And no, older brothers most certainly didn’t have to be the bigger man. I was feeling small and shallow and slightly bitter.

  My poor brother.

  “Like I said,” I said, “it’s really quite easy to do. All you have to do is follow the instructions and voilà.”

  Now H.T. snorted. Nothing that went voilà could be real, right? He certainly didn’t think so. I saw his cockiness return. He cracked his neck now.

  “And what sort of instructions are these?” he asked, getting into it a little, sitting back. He crossed his ankles and interlaced his fingers behind his head. His biceps bulged naturally.

  I shrugged. “It’s easy, actually. You just wait for the right time of night, arrange some objects in your room, and say a few lines from the book.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “You wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Demons, old gods, spirits, lost souls. Whatever you want, really.”

  “Uh-huh.” He was looking at the book again. “And you already did this?”

  “Sure, it was easy.”

  “It was easy; I get it.” He looked around the room suspiciously, eyes narrowing. “I don’t see any candles or anything. I think you’re full of shit.”

  I shrugged, and as I considered my next step, glancing at the book in his hand and then scanning my room, I found the answer I was looking for. In particular, I noticed the way my bed and desk and TV and bookshelves created a perfect square along the floor of my room. Such squares dominated the Necronomicon’s graphs and charts and tables.

  I had to suppress a grin. This was falling into place better than I could have planned.

  “H.T.,” I intoned quietly, menacingly, staring straight into his bloodshot eyes. I had to do this just right, if a hint of a smirk crossed my face all would be ruined. I had his attention. Despite his bravado, he was nervous. “H.T.,” I said again, “look around.”

  He turned his head but kept his eyes on me. Finally he tore them away and scanned the room. I was sitting on my bed against the far wall. H.T. was sitting in my writing chair, which was a fancy way of describing an old, rusted folding chair. He was also sitting in the center of the room. In the center of the carpeted square. He followed my eyes, glancing down at the floor. He snapped his head back up at me. “What am I looking for, dork?”

  “It’s a perfect square.”

  “What’s a perfect square?”

  “The floor.” Actually, I didn’t know for sure if the floor was a perfect square, but it looked petty damn close. Deep down—deep, deep down—I was beginning to wonder if this was working a little too well.

  “What?” he asked again, and now his apprehension was turning to anger. I grinned inwardly. I was going to hell, and I knew it.

  “Look from my computer desk to my bed,” I said.

  He did so.

  “The space between my bed and my desk is exactly four and a half feet,” I said, measuring roughly with my eye. It could have been five or even seven, for all I knew. “Now look from my book case to the TV stand.”

  He did so, his head whipping around.

  I said. “Again. It’s exactly four and a half feet. You’re sitting in a perfect square, H.T.”

  He was staring at the floor around him as if seeing it for the first time. This was a room he had been in countless times, but now, everything seemed new to him. At least, that’s what I was gathering.

  Next, I plucked the book from his fingers and opened it to a random page. Sure enough, I landed right smack dab onto a perfectly square diagram.

  Again, I wondered if all of this was working a little too well.

  The square, which was full of hieroglyphs and arcane phrases, was meant for dark rituals. Little did the original authors know that a big brother was using it to scare the shit out of his little brother. I showed him the square. My brother leaned forward a little, frowning and swallowing.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  But I didn’t answer, mostly because I didn’t know.

  I turned the page, and found yet another square. This one contained a pentagram and some snakes and what appeared to be signs of the zodiac. I showed him this as well. The blood drained from my brother’s face. I flipped through and found many more squares. In fact, square-shaped diagrams were the predominant shape, something my subconscious mind had obviously picked up on.

  At least, I hoped it was my subconscious mind; then again, maybe a dark god was using this twisted prank to really break free from his hellish world. This was, admittedly, getting a little weird. But like the professional older brother that I am, I doggedly pushed on.

  “And look here,” I said, finding a diagram that contained the image of what could only be described as a hideous devil. The devil seemed trapped in the square. I showed my brother the image. His mouth fell open. I could almost see his lips go dry.

  I said “You’re sitting on him.”

  “Sitting on who?” Now there was some real fear in my brother’s voice. He was buying all this shit. At least, his alcohol-soaked brain was.

  “You’re sitting on him, H.T.,” I said, and pointed at the devil. “He’s been waiting for you.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Beelzebub,” I said, grabbing at the only demon name I knew.

  What happened next was both comical and a surprising feat of athleticism. My brother, who had sort of stopped breathing, looked down at his feet, scanned the perfect square he was sitting within, looked at the book I was holding, paused, and then literally leaped out of the folding chair and onto my bed. Without touching the carpet. And like a dying ballerina, the folding chair snapped shut, spun once, and then thudded onto the carpet.

  In the blink of an eye, my brother was on the bed next to me and pressing himself against the wall, as far away from the carpeted square as possible.

  “What the hell’s going on, J.R.?”

  My plan to put a fright into my brother was working almost too good. Despite my best efforts, a blasted grin found the corners of my mouth, and I did my best to fight it off. Had my brother seen my grin? And if so, did he mistake it for mirth or evil glee? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t done with him yet.

  Crossing my fingers that my brother hadn’t seen my faltering smile, I said, “What do you think is going on in here?”

  His head snapped around, wildly scanning the room, looking for demons and imps and things that go bump in the night. I looked, too, just in case this practical joke was going a little too good. Nope, we were alone. No dark lords were lurking behind my trash cans or under my writing desk.

  “This is bullshit, right?”

  “No,” I said, fighting a quivering in my lips. I wanted to laugh. Bad.

  “You asshole. You know I hate demons and the devil.”

  “Hate is such a strong word.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means that maybe it’s time to face your fear.”

  My brother, who’s nineteen and still has bad dreams when he goes to horror movies, said, “I really hate you right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

  I pointed to the square-shaped section of carpet in my room and held up the book. I lowered my voice. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I think I just pissed myself a little.”

  He stared at me. I stared at him. One of his hands was flat against the wall. His knees were pressed together. I could smell booze and smoke on him. Enough was enough.

  I burst out laughing.

  “What?” he said, somehow flattening himself even more against the wall. “What?! Are they coming for me? What’s happening?”

  “No one’s coming for you,” I said, holding my stomach, laughing so hard I thought I might wet myself, too.

  He didn’t react for a second or two, and then he blinked long and hard. “So this was all bullshit?”

  I wiped a tear from my eye. I nodded. I was laughing too hard to speak.

  “You know, that’s a real shitty thing to do.” But now he started laughing, too. “You know, I took a hit or two tonight, and you know how that shit fucks me up.”

  He was right. My brother tended toward hallucinations and flat-out paranoia when he smoked weed.

  “I was certain I saw something in the closet. I mean, I could have sworn something was looking at us.”

  I quit laughing, and now I snapped my head around to the closet behind me. It was partially open and filled with only clothing. We both laughed, but since our parents were asleep just down the hall we had to keep our laughing to a minimum.

  H.T. sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed the book out of my hand. He looked it over again. “So what the hell are you doing with this thing?”

  “Just a little research.”

  “Please tell me for your stories.”

  “Yes,” I said. “For my stories.”

  He waved the book at me. “Still, this shit is evil.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But only if you put it to use.”

  My brother was shaking his head. “No. I can feel the evil in it.”

  “Are you having a bad trip?” I asked, grabbing the book back before he did anything stupid with it.

  “No thanks to you, and no. I’m serious. There is something seriously wrong with that book.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  “That book’s possessed.”

  “I think you’re possessed,” I said. “By Jose Cuervo and the happy weed.”

  But H.T. kept shaking his head. “No, there’s something about that book. Don’t you feel it?”

  “It feels like a book,” I said. “And besides, how could a book be possessed?”

  “Space doesn’t matter to demons, bro. You should know that. You write horror stories. We’ve all heard about those Dungeons & Dragons book burnings where people supposedly hear demons screeching from the flames.”

  “Urban legends,” I said.

  But my brother wasn’t listening. He was staring oddly at the book. “We’ve got to burn that book, bro. We’ve got to burn that book to keep them out.”

  “Who?” I snorted. “The demons?”

  “Damn straight the demons!”

  “I think you need to go to bed and sleep this off.”

  “If only I could, bro. But you brought evil into our house.”

  “Do you hear yourself? If the sun was out and you weren’t buzzed and stoned you most certainly wouldn’t be talking about a book being possessed.”

  “Except that it’s not,” said H.T. “It’s the middle of the night, you’re holding a devil book, and I’m scared shitless.”

  “You’re just being paranoid.”

  “Be that as it may, we’re burning that book. And we’re doing it now.”

  ***

  “And what if a cop sees us?” I asked. We were standing in the middle of the street, directly beneath a streetlight. A light rain had begun falling minutes earlier. The drops glittered like confetti in the yellow streetlight. I looked at my watch. It was exactly 2:00 a.m. I had read somewhere once that 2:00 a.m. was the hour of the vampire. Now, in the middle of the night with a sprinkle of rain falling and planning to burn a legendary grimoire (that is, a magic book), well, it was easy to believe that this was the hour of the vampire.

  Or of the Devil.

  “Well,” said my brother, “if the cops came, then I imagine we would get busted, wouldn’t we?”

  “Great.” I could just see me trying to explain this to a cop, or to our parents, both of whom were devout Baptists. “But officer, we were just trying to burn a book that could allegedly summon the Old Gods.”

  I shivered in the rain. Even though it was the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, I was in a flannel shirt and surfer shorts. Orange County winter nights didn’t require much more than that, even in the rain.

  I knew I looked like a fool standing there in the street, holding a lighter and staring down at a book that I was about to burn, a book I had just spent seven bucks of my hard-earned money on.

  I looked like a fool...and felt like a fool.

  Wearing a USC sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, his face hidden in shadows, my brother looked like a cult member about to sacrifice a chicken or a virgin.

  We stood two houses down from our house. Our residential street opened onto Dale street, which was a bigger street, one that a cop was much more likely to be cruising down.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” I said.

  “Give me the lighter,” he said. “I still can’t believe you brought this shit into our house.”

  “Since when are you so religious?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with religion, bro. There’s dark and there’s light. This is dark. Very, very dark.”

  “It’s just a book. Most people think it’s made up.”

  “Does it feel made up?” he asked.

  Actually, it didn’t. There was something decidedly creepy about the book. In fact, so creepy that it hadn’t taken much to convince me to burn it.

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s just hurry this up. I’ve got to pee.”

  And so, with a misty rain falling all around, H.T. bent down and set the book on fire. Or, at least, tried to.

  “It’s kinda wet,” he said.

  But I came prepared. I doused the book with lighter fluid and my little brother tried again. As it caught fire in a burst, he yelped, jumping back, singing his knuckle hair. I pulled him next to me and we stood together and watched the book burn.

  I think we were also waiting.

  Waiting for what, I wasn’t exactly sure. Screeching, perhaps. Or the screaming of something ancient and evil. Perhaps even a face in the fire, twisted in agony as it sinks back into hell. Something, anything to indicate that I hadn’t wasted seven bucks.

  But none of that happened. Not even a whimper.